13 Phones of Halloween #13

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The scene of Tippi Hedren taking refuge in a phone-booth in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds was the first scene I thought of when coming up with phone-related nightmares for this series, so I figure it's as finely feathered a place as any to finish us up.

Nobody can quite make you feel the walls closing in on you even in an open space like Hitch can. Boxes in boxes in boxes...

... frames in frames in frames, 

and all we can do is watch.

I hope you guys have enjoyed the series this year! I had a list with a dozen more on it, but 13's the magic number. What horror movie telephone scenes that I didn't get around to are your faves?

And have a wonderful Halloween, everybody!

Thursday's Ways Not To Die

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976-EVIL (1988)

This is the opening scene of the movie; we have no idea who this guy is being chased by ringing telephones. It all happens along with the credits, which I was able to edit around... although I do feel as if we all miss something by me not including this specific credit here...

No one should ever react with that expression to the words "And Sandy Dennis as Aunt Lucy" coming on the screen! Save this WTF of an opening scene and some between-the-lines strangeness Sandy Dennis is kinda this movie's saving grace - it pops to life whenever she shows up. 

She is quite clearly having a BLAST. I was really hoping they'd give her character a great death scene and the entire post could be about her, but the last act is a total still-birth - I don't know if director Robert Englund (yes director Robert Englund - this is one of two movies he's made, along with 2008's Killer Pad, which uh....) ran out of money or what but all the death scenes, save this eye-catching opener, consist of the camera cutting away at the moment of violence and then cutting back to find the person suddenly dead, or something similar. All Sandy Dennis gets is a smack to the head, the poor thing.

She deserved far, far better. I'd actually never seen this movie until last night - thanks to Anonymous for bringing it up in the comments earlier this week I realized I should give it a shot, since I was looking for a good Ways Not To Die for today's entry in "The 13 Phones of Halloween." The movie's bizarre enough - not just Sandy Dennis' must-be-seen performance, but also the, how do I say this...

... the unrelenting gayness of this movie. It's kind of non-stop. It's maybe not as gay as A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, but well you'd have to include man-to-man penetration to be gayer than A Nightmare on Elm Street 2. 976-EVIL is up there, though - it fetishizes the hell out of all the punks, and spends way more time leering at them than the couple of girls who pop up here and there. And it's all about the loving relationship and sexual jealousies between two male cousins...

 ... oh, and phones. Evil devil phones, or something.

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Links to the Previous Ways Not To Die after the jump...

13 Phones of Halloween #11

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I knew I had to cover the Scream franchise for this series because hello, phones phones and more phones, everywhere phones. And it struck me, hey, seeing as I know somebody who loves the movies even more than I do I figured I'd bring him in as a very special guest to do the Ghostface Call-ah (groan) honors.  

So here's our favorite Scream enthusiast Glenn Dunks...
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Did you see Buzzfeed’s ranking of the best Ghostface kills in the Scream franchise? If you did you were probably like me and scoffed at some of the rankings as often as you agreed with them. For instance, the reason Hallie’s death in Scream 2 works so well is because she is the smart one who wanted to “get the fuck outta here”, and her death is a direct result of Sidney’s boneheaded decision to go back to the car. And, look, I'll defend Scream 3 despite its issues (Cotton Weary having a chat show called 100% Cotton is all-time groan moment), but Ghostface killing somebody by fax was a bridge too dumb. But how about that mid-level ranking of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Cici Cooper. Ranked below wet blanket boyfriend Derek & sad puppy killer Charlie, for crying out loud! 

Everyone’s favourite ass-kicking heroine (give or take a Ripley, perhaps?) in her baby-pink knitted sweater watching Party of Five is so far from Buffy that it works marvelously. Despite two other death scenes that are “much more elaborate” (Maureen and Randy), and despite only appearing in about eight minutes of the movie, Gellar’s appearance is very memorable.
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And while I could go on and on about how well-staged this scene is. Like how great the design of the sorority house is, the way it plays up landline static to maximum effect, and how it mirrors the Casey Becker scene from Scream but has its own identity. I could especially mention the smart and delicate framing of shots like when the killer enters the house while Cici and Dawnie chat in the foreground or the way wide shots always include a door or a window or a getaway of some kind, but I won’t. No, what really makes this scene work as well as it does is the way it very quickly places Cici in danger that she (and not just the audience) recognizes. I can actually believe why she wouldn’t just run out of the house screaming because it all happens so fast.

There’s the blatant “Do you want to die tonight, Cici?” that would paralyze anybody with fear, and the deeply unsettling prospect that she’s in just as much danger outside as in. Never, however, is it quite as effective as this final pre-Ghostface moment. Pulling her hair back, exacerbated, as the telephone rings. That last reluctant decision she makes to pick it up one last time. Maybe it was just a prank and Ted will be on the other end laughing with his frat buddies. That’s weak “Hello”, she says before the door behind her bursts open.

That Cici falls prey to the trope of running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door isn’t insulting, but rather part of why the scene and the films in general are so successful. Cici, as shown earlier in the film by the sequel conversation, knows her movies, but when the caller on the other end of the line brings the horror to her, it crushes whatever savviness she thought she had. It’s a wonderful encapsulation of what the entire franchise is about. We can spend our whole lives watching horror, but when it comes knocking on our own door (or, in this case, calling on the phone) everything we know goes flying out the window. Just like Cici. 

Oops. Poor Smidge.
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13 Phones of Halloween #10

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For a movie set in the 1980s phones actually don't show up in Donnie Darko - which came out on this day 13 years ago! - very much. Not until the end, where they play a vital role, thanks to a pair of missed connections.

Donnie's therapist Dr. Thurman (Katharine Ross) tries to contact his mother Rose (Mary McDonnell), saying its urgent, immediately following a disturbing hypno-session with Donnie...

... (no it's not the one where he molests himself in front of her but you knew I'd have to get that gif in here somehow)... but Rose isn't in town, she had to go to Los Angeles with Sparkle Motion for the championships, lest someone doubt her commitment.

One scene later we see Rose trying to get a hold of Donnie at home from the airport in Los Angeles. She leaves her flight information on the machine, which Donnie doesn't notice since he's all up on Gretchen at the moment...

I could go on about how all of these missed connections are threaded together Fate-wise since Donnie Darko's all about the choices each and every character makes choosing that one single path to their destination, to Rose and Samantha being on the plane...

... in the false dimension where the engine falls off...

... and kills Donnie in the real dimension, all that jazz, but really I just wanna single out Mary McDonnell's performance on that fateful missed phone call...

... because as ever she's a phenomenal actress and she deserves credit whenever you can toss it her way. What she does with the role of Rose is tremendous and the film wouldn't work if she weren't there putting all her brittle longing and heart into it. Cheers to Rose, man. What a nice lady.

PS Where the hell are you, Richard Kelly?